Abstract artists and University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts alumni Augusto “Gus” Albor, Edwin Coscolluela, Lao Lianben, Red Mansueto, and Roberto M.A. Robles pool their creative forces in Memoirs, which will be on view at Galleria Duemila from February 3 to 28.

The exhibit features each artist’s style through diverse layers of influences and abstract images.

            Gus Albor uses familiar shapes and lines but takes his viewers farther than what is readily seen and into what is eventually felt. Art critic Cid Reyes notes that Albor’s art evokes a sense of infinity and timelessness. Albor says, “I get spiritual satisfaction when I work on abstractions. I feel I’m entering a higher level of consciousness. It is as if can see the elements of nature interweave and form the universe.”      

Edwin Coscolluela, currently an instructor at the College of Fine Arts at the College of the Holy Spirit, started using the digital medium while preparing materials for his paintings three years ago. For Memoirs, Coscolluela chose five distinct designs. “I can always delete or undo what I do in the computer, unlike in painting when you cannot delete the colors you have already used on the canvas…It’s interesting, the things that you discover,” says Coscolluela, whose primary digital tool is the Adobe Illustrator. “When you encounter problems early on, you can solve them later, like creating soft lines with fewer strokes.”

            Lao Lianben, a CCP Thirteen Artists Awardee in 1976, is a master of subtlety and refined strokes. “Every time I paint...I put in a lot of things and then I obliterate little by little until a particular moment,” Lao tells BluPrint magazine. “My paintings have a lot of undercoating because of those images that I have covered and uncovered until I am satisfied.” He adds that he wants his paintings to become a meditative process for the viewers.

            Red Mansueto is a keen observer of his surroundings, often experimenting with different materials to depict human condition, accommodating both the good and the bad. Abstraction allows Mansueto such freedom of interpretation and accessibility. “My work is basically painting, but sculptural in essence. It has volume and a lot of texture. One could actually touch it.”

            Roberto M.A. Robles enjoys creating raw, reflective art environments. “I am after the soul. I am not after the skin,” says the former dean of the University of the East College of Fine Arts and master of fine arts degree holder from Tsukuba University in Japan. “My work is like a prayer…it involves sincere thoughts. That’s how I approach my work.”  

MEMOIRS is sponsored by Metrobank Platinum MasterCard. Show runs from February 3-28, 2007 at Galleria Duemila, 210 Loring St., Pasay City, Philippines. For inquiries, contact Galleria Duemila/Mimi Santos at (632) 831-9990 or (632) 833-9815, email: duemila@mydestiny.net,